Held hostage in a lakeside cabin by pathological thug Al Walker (William Holden), Dr. Collins (Lee J. Cobb) overwhelms his captor using a single weapon, a book entitled The Criminal Mind and Insanity. Criminal psychologist Collins unravels the nightmare that has plagued Walker, brilliantly visualized by director Maté, the lensman behind The Passion of Joan of Arc. In this taut siege story, the claustrophobic cabin becomes the equivalent of a compressed Freudian fantasy that includes a helpful lecture on how the conscious and unconscious minds are separated by a “censor band.” When The Dark Past dissolves that band, the emitted light is blinding.
Directed by Rudolph Maté. Written by Philip MacDonald, Michael Blankfort, Albert Duffy, adapted by Malvin Wald, Oscar Saul from the play Blind Alley by James Warwick. Photographed by Joseph Walker. With William Holden, Nina Foch, Lee J. Cobb. (75 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Sony Pictures Releasing)
(In conjunction with) Dark Past: Film Noir by German Emigrés
As Hitler’s influence grew in 1930s Germany, artists and intellectuals fled the country; whether because they were Jewish or held contrary political views, they saw their lives or livelihoods threatened by the emerging fascist reign. The German film industry was not immune to this flight and the decade witnessed the exodus of a host of important filmmakers—directors, cinematographers, screenwriters, and others. Hollywood became a haven for these hasty émigrés—by the early forties tinsel town had a thriving contingent of German-speaking filmmakers, including Otto Preminger, Max Ophuls, Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Edgar G. Ulmer, and many others. Grateful for any assignment, these veteran directors took on low-budget B-movies, turning them into highly effective, emotionally resonant, darkly dramatized mysteries and crime stories, later to be known as noirs. It’s said that the greatest contribution of this group of directors was the shadow-laden mise-en-scène with its brooding urban cityscapes distilled from German Expressionism. But as you shall see from these eight noirs by eight directors, much more than rain-spattered streets and crepuscular lighting links them. Many of these bristling features, from Max Ophuls’s Caught to Curtis Bernhardt’s High Wall, from William Dieterle’s Dark City to Otto Preminger’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, share a belief that authority is necessarily corrupt, that institutions are to be mistrusted, that what is worst in us will come to light, and, finally, that no one can shake their dark past.
Theater Admission Prices
Single Feature
$5.50 BAM/PFA Members, UC Berkeley Students
$9.50 Adults (18-64)
$6.50 UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and retirees
Non-UC Berkeley students
Senior citizens (65 & over)
Disabled persons
Youth (17 & under
Additional Feature $4.00 All Patrons
